Many old stories are in existence concerning the durability and incombustibility of the wood of this tree. It is said that Julius Cæsar wished to set fire to a wooden tower before the gates of a castle, in the Alps, which he was besieging; that he heaped up logs of larch wood around it, but was utterly unable to make them burn,—“_robusta larix igni impenetrabile lignum_.” Evelyn, one of the first English writers on trees, gives an account of a ship made of larch wood and cypress which was found in the Numidian Sea, twelve fathoms under water, and which, though it had lain fourteen hundred years submerged, was yet quite hard and sound. Exaggerated as these accounts may seem, the fact remains that the wood is extremely valuable, and what the larch lacks in grace and beauty as an ornamental tree it makes up in its merits as a useful one. Thus even among trees there is a just law of compensation. INDEX INDEX Acacia, rose, 131 _Acer_, 21 _dasycarpum_, 26 _negundo_, 28, 29 _pennsylvanicum_, 27, 28 _platanoides_, 29, 30 _pseudo-platanus_, 30, 31 _rubrum_, 23, 25 _saccharinum_, 25, 26 _saccharum_, 22, 23, 26 _spicatum_, 28 _Aceracæ_, 21 _Æsculus glabra_, 17 _hippocastanum_, 15, 17 Ailanthus, 160 _glandulosa_, 160, 161 _Amelanchier_, 174 _canadensis_, 173 Angelica tree, 162 Apple tree, 167 _Aralia spinosa_, 162, 163 _Araliaceæ_, 153, 162 Ash, American, 36 black, 38 buds, color of, 40 downy, 37 European, 39 excrescences on the, 36 green, 36 red, 37 seeds, 41 white, 36 Ashes, 9, 35, 41 Aspen, 179 American, 179 large-toothed, 181 Balm of Gilead, 182 Bark, 6, 7 color of, 7 taste of, 7 Basswood, 141 small leaved, 141 white, 141 Beech, 7, 77 American, 77 blue, 72 European, 79 purple, 80 _Betula_, 61 _alba_, 68 _lenta_, 63, 64 _lutea_, 64, 66 _nigra_, 66 _papyrifera_, 60, 61 _populifolia_, 62, 63 _pumila_, 68 _Betulaceæ_, 59 Bigelow, 158 _Bignoniaceæ_, 153, 158 Birch, 59 American, 62 beer, 64 black, 63 canoe, 7, 60 dwarf, 68 European white, 68 gray, 62 paper, 60 red, 66 river, 66 sweet, 63 white, 60, 62 Birch, yellow, 64 Birches, 59 Bosc, 169 Boutcher, 80 Box elder, 28 Branches, 6, 7, 10 Bryant, quoted, 119 Buckeye, Ohio, 17 Buckeyes, 15 Buds, 6, 10, 11 accessory, 11 adventitious, 11 axillary, 6, 10 collateral, 11 flower, 11 flowers in the, 10 latent, 11 lateral, 6, 10 scales of, 9 superposed, 11 terminal, 6, 10 winter, 11 Bundle-scars, 10 Butternut, 11, 45 sugar from sap of, 47 Buttonwood, 117 Cambium layer, 5, 6 _Carpinus_, 73 _caroliniana_, 72, 74 _Castanea_, 82 _dentata_, 81, 83 Catalpa, hardy, 158 _speciosa_, 158, 160 _Celtis_, 101 _occidentalis_, 112, 113